Steam's AI Problem
Steam’s Next Fest is filled with AI clones. What’s next for major digital storefronts?
Steam’s Next Fest was criticized for being filled with AI-created games. What are they planning to do about it? Find out. Also, Nintendo held an independent game showcase. Check out what they showed, along with all the latest news. Let’s go.
Nintendo’s Indie World Update
Nintendo released a press video focused on independent games last week. The 15-minute presentation showed 23 titles that are coming to the switch in the near future. You can check out everything announced, but here are a few of our favorites:
Witchbrook
Ever dream of attending wizardry school? If so, check out this life sim when it launches January 28.
Winds of Viridia
Winds of Viridia has a very Zelda Tears of the Kingdom feel to its design, but with seemingly significantly more combat. A demo is out now, with the full game launching in 2027.
Dumpster Gang
A cooperative game where you play as a raccoon, causing devastation at night with your friends. Dumpster Gang is slated to launch in March of 2027.
Jason Dean
Digital game storefronts get sloppy
Players who participated in Steam’s Next Fest a couple weeks ago likely noticed a trend: AI built clones of many popular indie games.
During an event in South Korea last week, Steam business team members were asked what the company plans to do about AI-generated games. “We don’t think we’re perfect and there’s plenty of room for improvement,” said Steam’s Tom Giardino. However, the company doesn’t see banning studios who create AI games as the answer. “Rather than limiting developer access, making Steam a smarter and more dynamic platform is the starting point of our philosophy,” said Giardino.
"We don't want to be gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use" - Steam’s Tom Giardino
Currently Valve requires developers who use AI to reveal how it is utilized on the game’s Steam page. However, the CEO of the competing digital storefront Epic took to Twitter and called this process a “political act.” Replying to a post about Steam’s AI disclosure, Tim Sweeny said “forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they’re helping organize is abhorrent.”
Steam and Epic are not the only digital storefronts dealing with AI. New game pages on the indie store Itch.io have doubled over the past two months. While each of these companies are trying to figure out how to deal with this issue, AI company Anthropic said their latest release of Claude Code was updated to prevent the process of cloning games.
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Side Quests (more stories worth reading)
🚗 We played the board game Rush Hour Duel. Check out our thoughts on this competitive version of a classic game.
🖖🏻 Star Trek Online players paid tribute in-game to Captain Picard, portrayed by the late Patrick Stewart.
🚀 EA reportedly closed down BioWare so it could instead make Star Wars Battlefront 3.
❎ Xbox’s CEO says their consoles are in high demand and Microsoft can’t produce enough, but sales figures say otherwise.
🔫 Activision apologized for using footage from a real-life tragedy in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and said they plan to remove it.
🗓️ Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods was delayed until 2027.
🚀 Bungie provided an update on Destiny. Could the original game finally make its way to PC?
🌐 Discord will make some of its large public servers searchable on the web.
👎🏾 EA workers claim “morale has been terrible” at the company since it went private, while BioWare reportedly removed diversity from their latest Mass Effect game to avoid negative internal feedback before the title was killed.
📰 IGN has an in-depth interview with the developers of World of Warcraft Forever.
💩 The latest episode of South Park features exclusive gameplay footage from Grand Theft Auto 6.
📷 Check out this in-depth look at the rise of video game photography.
🚫 Celeste and TowerFall are no longer available in the Xbox store, as the publisher removed them to support the BDS boycott of Microsoft.
🖥️ Dark Souls 2 and 3 multiplayer is temporarily being shut down due to “server issues.”
⛔ Meanwhile, Capcom has temporarily delisted Street Fighter 5 and turned off its servers as it works on a PHP security issue.
🔫 Actor Donald Glover will direct and star in a live-action series based on the game PUBG Battlegrounds.
📈 Round numbers: Phantom Blade Zero sold over 4 million copies in 72 hours.
New Releases this week:
Jason Dean
11/2: Gravhounds (Xbox and PC)
11/3: ArcheAge Chronicles (PC)
11/3: Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
11/4: World of Warcraft Forever (PC)
11/5: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake (Switch)
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